Harb lara form content and the inimitabi

These encompassfigurative speech majāz, metaphor istiʿāra, and implied meaning kināya.. In al-Jurjānı̄’s works,these come to primarily revolve around four elements: 1 Sentence constr

Form, Content, and the Inimitability of the Qur ʾān in ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānı̄’s Works

‘form’ is constituted by sentence construction (naẓm) and only certain kinds of literaryfigures, ones that involve processes of indirect signification These encompassfigurative speech (majāz), metaphor (istiʿāra), and implied meaning (kināya) Simile(tashbı̄h), on the other hand, is distinguished from these literary figures as a declarativekind of statement, which renders it part of content This opens up the possibility ofeloquence resulting from content as well as form and shows that the criteria for iʿjāzand poetic excellence are not necessarily one and the same

Introduction

Lafẓ and maʿnā constitute one of the basic frameworks of analysis in classical Arabic erary criticism Lafẓ refers to expression, be it at the level of the utterance, the word, orthe sentence, and it could also be understood as‘form’ Maʿnā refers to meaning, both atthe level of the signification of a single word or the idea expressed by a group of words(i.e.‘content’) The relationship between the two was assessed and discussed from thevery beginnings of the Arabic critical tradition Ibn Qutayba (d 276/889), forexample, evaluates poetic excellence based on the various combinations of good andbad wording and meaning.1 Al-Jāḥiẓ (d 255/868–869) famously declares that ‘ideasare strewn on the road’ (ﻖﻳﺮﻄﺍﻟﻲﻓ ﺔﺣﻭﺮﻄﻣ ﻲﻧ ﻤﺍﻟ), suggesting that eloquence lies in theway the ideas are expressed and not in the ideas themselves, which are available to every-one for the taking.2Widely-quoted statements such as this one by al-Jāḥiẓ support thecommonly held conclusion in modern scholarship that classical Arabic criticism gaveprecedence to lafẓ over maʿnā (i.e form over content).3

lit-While correct to a certainextent, this conclusion conceals a much more complex picture Whether precedence is

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

*Lara Harb, Near Eastern Studies Department, Princeton University, 112 Jones Hall, Princeton, NJ

08544, USA Email: lharb@princeton.edu

Vol 18, No 3, 301–321, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1475262X.2016.1199096

given to lafẓ or maʿnā depends on what level of lafẓ and maʿnā is intended (the utterance,the word, or the sentence) Furthermore, it depends on what aspects of poetic speechwere being considered and whether they were understood by medieval critics as corre-sponding to form or content.

The main theorist to advance the discussion of lafẓ and maʿnā in relation to eloquence isʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānı̄ He does so primarily in his work on the inimitability of theQurʾān, Dalāʾil iʿjāz al-Qurʾān (The Signs of the Inimitability of the Qurʾān), but also inhis other major work on eloquence entitled Asrār al-balāgha (The Secrets of Eloquence).While it is widely acknowledged that al-Jurjānı̄ complicates the relationship between lafẓand maʿnā, modern scholars continue to maintain that lafẓ, even with al-Jurjānı̄, takes pre-cedence.4This, I argue, is not perfectly accurate Part of the problem is that our under-standing of the relationship between lafẓ and maʿnā in al-Jurjānı̄’s works has beenconfused This confusion is not unmerited The different levels to which the terms mayrefer has al-Jurjānı̄ sometimes embracing one in favour of the other in one instance andadopting the opposite position in the next Keeping track of what the terms mean in agiven context requires having a clear picture of their different levels of signification andhow they relate to each other Modern scholars, namely Margaret Larkin and KamalAbu Deeb, have illuminated some aspects of the terms as used by al-Jurjānı̄ How theseterms map onto the main components of poetic speech remains unclear, however.What I mean by the‘components of poetic speech’ are the main literary units that gen-erally constitute the objects of analysis in classical Arabic criticism In al-Jurjānı̄’s works,these come to primarily revolve around four elements: (1) Sentence construction (naẓm),which is concerned with the arrangement of words in a sentence in light of their syntac-tical relationships with each other; (2) simile (tashbı̄h), which includes analogy (tamthı̄l);(3) figurative speech (majāz), which includes metaphor (istiʿāra); and (4) allusion orimplication (kināya).5

These four categories become the basic units of what is later malized as the‘Science of Eloquence’ (ʿilm al-balāgha) by al-Sakkākı̄ (d 626/1229) andal-Khaṭı̄b al-Qazwı̄nı̄ (d 739/1338).6

for-Naẓm becomes the main subject matter of ʿilm

al-maʿānı̄, the Science of Meaning, one of the three main branches into which they dividethe study of eloquence The remaining elements (tashbı̄h, majāz, and kināya) form themain pillars of ʿilm al-bayān, the Science of Expression, which constitutes the secondmain branch of the study of eloquence The third branch, ʿilm al-badı̄ʿ, the Science ofRhetorical Figures, deals with the other literary figures that do not form part of theScience of Expression.7In this article, I will be concerned with what later forms thebasis of the first two branches of the Science of Eloquence,ʿilm al-maʿānı̄ and ʿilm al-bayān I will analyse how naẓm, tashbı̄h, majāz, and kināya correspond to lafẓ and

maʿnā (i.e form and content) in al-Jurjānı̄’s works

I argue that al-Jurjānı̄ treats sentence construction (naẓm), figurative language(majāz), including metaphor (istiʿāra), and implication (kināya) as aspects of form(lafẓ) Simile (tashbı̄h), on the other hand, does not belong to form; rather, it is part ofpoetic content (maʿnā) This has several implications First, simile, a literary device typi-cally regarded as mere embellishment, is seen here as the primary subject-matter ofpoetry in and of itself In other words, simile is not treated merely as a device for describ-ing some other subject-matter; rather, the simile is the subject-matter itself Second, eventhough tashbı̄h, after al-Jurjānı̄, comes to constitute one of the pillars of ʿilm al-bayān, itdoes not really belong to the‘science of expression’, as I will show Finally, while theinimitability of the Qurʾān lies in its form, as al-Jurjānı̄ argues, it does not precludepoets from excelling and outdoing each other in areas of content, such as in simile

This is significant because it establishes two different aspects of poetic beauty, theQurʾān’s inimitability (iʿjāz) lying only in one of them In this respect, iʿjāz and poeticexcellence are not one and the same thing The latter is a larger category.

The Different Meanings ofLafẓ and Maʿnā

Al-Jurjānı̄devotes much effort in his Dalāʾil al-iʿjāz, as Margaret Larkin has shown, to ting the Muʿtazilite claim, primarily of al-Qāḍı̄ ʿAbd al-Jabbār (d 415/1025), that eloquencelies in utterances (lafẓ) and their sounds independent of the meanings they denote.8

rebut-Jurjānı̄ grants the sounds of utterances a role in the beauty of speech only insofar as theyshould not be lowly, out of date, or incomprehensible Otherwise, speech does not oweits eloquence‘to the ring of its letters or its linguistic appearance, rather to a matter thatreaches a person’s heart and a benefit the mind ignites from its kindling’.9

Al-He shows howeven those who do make a case for the precedence of lafẓ base their arguments—often unbe-knownst to them—on utterances as signifiers of meaning and not on their acoustic beauty.10Any consideration of eloquence, therefore, requires a consideration of meaning (maʿnā)

At the same time, al-Jurjānı̄ completely dismisses the role of maʿnā elsewhere, ing that prioritizing it over lafẓ is ‘the worst of all diseases’.11

declar-In this case, he argues that it

is the way a meaning is‘crafted’ which distinguishes a statement’s excellence (i.e its lafẓ

or form) and not the meaning itself Comparing poetry to goldsmithery, he states:

It is known that the way of speech is [similar to] the way of forming and craftingjewelry, and that the course that the meaning being conveyed takes is [like] thecourse of the substance on which the forming and shaping takes place, such assilver or gold that is made into a ring or a bracelet Just as it is inconceivable, ifyou wanted to inspect the shape of the ring and the quality of its craftsmanship,

to [only] look at the silver of which it was moulded or the gold on which thiswork and craftsmanship was performed, it is inconceivable, if you wanted toknow the place of excellence and distinction in speech, to merely look at itsmeaning If we were to choose one ring over another because the quality ofits silver is better or its gemstone is more precious, this preference would not

be based on the ring as a ring Likewise, if we were to choose one verse ofpoetry over another because of its meaning, the choice would not be based

on a consideration [of the verse] as poetry or speech This is unequivocal.12

In other words, it is not the excellence of meaning in and of itself as‘raw material’ thatdetermines the beauty of a particular line of poetry or speech Rather, it is the way thismeaning is shaped and moulded

Even old, hackneyed, and common ideas, therefore, can still provide the fodder forwonderfully eloquent speech if crafted in the right way You may hear people mindlesslysay something known and common to all and then see that same idea keenly shaped sothat‘it becomes unusual in its craft, subtle in its detail, and innovative in its compo-sition’.13

For example, people may say:‘one’s nature does not change’ or ‘you cannotmake a person deviate from what he is naturally inclined to do’ ‘As you see’, al-Jurjānı̄ states, these are ‘commonplace, known, and overused meanings/ideas’.14

Thenlook at what al-Mutanabbı̄ says in the following verse:

It is hoped of the heart [that it] forgets you

[but] one’s nature refuses change15

Al-Jurjānı̄states: ‘You see how [the meaning] transformed into a jewel after it had been

a [mere] bead, and it became the most wonderful thing after having been nothing’.16

As aresult, al-Jurjānı̄ agrees with al-Jāḥiẓ’s famous declaration that ‘meanings/ideas arestrewn on the road’.17

That is, it is not the meaning conveyed which distinguishes a ment, but the way this meaning—whatever it may be—is expressed Eloquence, in thiscase, lies in lafẓ

state-Al-Jurjānı̄ therefore sometimes appears to be a proponent of maʿnā and other timesconsiders it completely irrelevant and attributes eloquence entirely to lafẓ, as we see inthe earlier goldsmithery analogy Larkin regards this‘inconsistency in the use of termi-nology’ as evidence that the Dalāʾil must have originally been ‘separate groups of lecturesthat were probably delivered on different occasions, perhaps to distinct groups’.18

At thesame time, however, as Larkin and others have shown, the two terms operate at a variety

of levels Besides discussing and providing more specific definitions of the terms lafẓ and

maʿnā, al-Jurjānı̄ tries to clarify some of the various aspects of poetic language by coiningnew terms such as‘maʿnā al-maʿnā’ (the meaning of meaning) and ‘ṣūrat al-maʿnā’ (theimage of meaning) and elaborating on old ones, such as‘naẓm’ (sentence construction).While al-Jurjānı̄ might mean different things with the terms lafẓ and maʿnā in differentinstances, therefore, it is more likely a result of the lack of specific-enough terminologyrather than an ‘inconsistency’ Nevertheless, this multitude of meanings of lafẓ and

maʿnā, and the lack of more specific terms, has been a source of considerable confusion,

as al-Jurjānı̄ himself acknowledges.19

Kamal Abu Deeb distinguishes three usages of the word‘lafẓ’ in Arabic criticism:The first usage indicates the sound-aspect of poetry, with no reference to itsmeaning The second usage applies to form, or construction, as opposed tocontent or the raw material, or subject matter, or ideas, expressed in poetry.(There is also a third meaning which is, of course, the single word as an inde-pendent unit.)20

More briefly put, the three usages could be summarized as‘sound’, ‘word combination’,and‘word choice’, as Heinrichs has described it.21

As for the term maʿnā, besides ing the direct meaning of a single word, it has the double meaning, as Heinrichs suggests,

denot-of the still unarticulated idea (gharaḍ or aṣl al-maʿnā/the ‘raw material’ in the earlier smithery analogy) and the final articulated idea.22Let me first elaborate on how al-Jurjānı̄sees these various parts functioning in relation to one another before getting to the trick-ier question of how they relate to eloquence and poetic beauty

gold-The Sign, Signifier, and Signified

While Larkin suggests that al-Jurjānı̄ is inconsistent in his use of the terminology of lafẓand maʿnā, she does point out that when applied to individual words his use of the termsremains consistent.23In this case, the lafẓ refers to ‘the combination of sounds of whichthe word consists’ and the maʿnā refers to ‘the lexical definition of the word’.24

In otherwords, lafẓ refers to the ‘signifier’ (lafẓ1inFigure 1), if we were to borrow terminologyfrom modern semiotics, and maʿnā refers to the ‘signified’ (maʿnā1) This understanding

of the term lafẓ, however, as merely a ‘signifier’ is what al-Jurjānı̄ consistently takes issue

with throughout Dalāʾil al-iʿjāz, as well as in Asrār al-balāgha.25

He dedicates much of hisdiscussion to debunking the idea that lafẓ, in the sense of the acoustics of the word, canhave any contribution to eloquence and argues for the impossibility of evaluating the elo-quence of a word as a signifier, without considering what it signifies In this sense, al-Jurjānı̄ is calling for a more precise understanding of lafẓ, which is akin to Ferdinand

de Saussure’s concept of ‘sign’ (lafẓ2).26That is, it constitutes a whole that combinesboth signifier and signified (seeFigure 1) The proper meaning of lafẓ for al-Jurjānı̄ istherefore not the‘signifier’, which is limited to the ‘sound-image’ of a word, but the

‘sign’, which incorporates the meaning of the word

Form and Content

Next, al-Jurjānı̄brings the discussion from a semiotic level up to a semantic level Relying

on the linguist Émile Benveniste, Paul Ricoeur describes semiotics and semantics as twolevels of linguistics:‘The sign is the unit of semiotics while the sentence is the unit ofsemantics’.27

In other words, al-Jurjānı̄ moves from the level of the word or sign to thelevel of discourse or what he calls naẓm.28

Naẓm, according to al-Jurjānı̄, is the way a tence is constructed in light of the syntactical relationships between its words.29 Heexplains that one cannot deem a single word eloquent‘except through a consideration

sen-of its place in the sentence construction (naẓm), and the appropriateness of itsmeaning in relation to its neighboring meanings’.30

This semantic context in whichsingle words lie (i.e naẓm) constitutes the third usage of the term lafẓ It is ultimatelylafẓ in the sense of discourse or the sentence as a whole (i.e form), and not the singlewords, that determines eloquence (lafẓ3inFigure 2) He explains:

when well-reasoned people say ‘it is possible for a single meaning to beexpressed by two words (lafẓayn), one being eloquent and the other not,’[… what is really intended is that] it is possible for there to be two phrases(ʿibāratān) expressing the same basic meaning, and for one to [be better thanthe other].31

That is, when one attributes eloquence to ‘lafẓ’, as al-Jurjānı̄ clarifies, the intendedmeaning of lafẓ is the phrase as a whole and not the single words Consequently, the counter-part of lafẓ (as phrase) in this case is the overall meaning of the sentence or its content

It is this usage of the term lafẓ, at the level of ‘form’ and ‘content’, which al-Jurjānı̄intends when he states that the‘worst of all diseases’ is he who places eloquence in

maʿnā and not in lafẓ.32

What he means is that it is wrong to attribute eloquence tocontent rather than form In this case, maʿnā corresponds to the unarticulated ideathat the whole sentence proceeds to convey (maʿnā2inFigure 2); that is, the purpose(gharaḍ) or original meaning (aṣl al-maʿnā) However, al-Jurjānı̄ discusses another level

of maʿnā, which corresponds to the idea in its final articulated form

Figure 1 Sign, signifier, and signified

The‘Image of Meaning’ (Ṣūrat al-maʿnā)

If the first usage of the terms lafẓ and maʿnā was at the level of the word (sign, signified,and signifier), and the second at the level of the sentence (form and content), the thirdlevel constitutes the final articulated product Returning to the analogy of goldsmithery,al-Jurjānı̄ explains that the purpose of speech is to convey a single unified meaning thatresults from the combination of all the words in a sentence:

The likeness of him who constructs speech is the likeness of him who takespieces of gold or silver and melts them together until they become one singlepiece That is, if you say:‘Zayd hit ‘Amr very hard on Friday in order to disci-pline him,’ you gain an understanding (mafhūm) from the totality of all thesewords that forms a single meaning, not several meanings, as some imagine.This is because you did not invoke all these words to express their individualmeanings Rather you invoked them in order to convey aspects of the connec-tions which occur between the verb‘to hit’ and what was [associated] with it,and the inferences that result from these connections.33

Al-Jurjānı̄ calls this overall understanding that is achieved through the totality of a struction‘ṣūrat al-maʿnā’ (the image of meaning).34

con-He explains that while two words(kalimatān) may convey the same meaning, two phrases (kalāmān) cannot That isbecause

one cannot imagine that the ‘image of the meaning’ (ṣūrat al-maʿnā) of onephrase or verse to be exactly the same as the other, […] unless one intentionallysubstitutes each utterance with its synonym without changing the construction

or composition.35

In this case, there is no comparison in quality to be made, for this kind of transcription of

a particular sentence construction onto synonyms is no different from mere‘translation’,

he explains.36While two statements or verses can have the same subject or purpose(gharaḍ), therefore, it is impossible for them to have the same shape or image:

Note that our use of the word ‘ṣūra’ (image) is a comparison and analogy(tamthı̄l wa-qiyās) for something we know through our minds with something

we see with our eyes For when we saw that the differences within a [given]species lie in aspects of the image—so that the differentiation of one person

Figure 2 Image of meaning, form, and content

from another or one horse from another happens through a particularity in theimage of one that is absent in the image of the other [even though they belong tothe same species]; the same goes for crafts, where the difference between onering and another or one bracelet and another is in [their image])—we expressedthis difference and disparity by saying:‘a meaning/idea has an image (ṣūra) inthis [statement/verse] that differs from its image in that’.37

In other words, two creatures can belong to the same species, yet differ in the rities of their image Similarly, two statements could articulate the same general meaning

particula-or idea, but differ in the particularities of the way in which they are shaped and moulded(i.e their image).38

An unawareness of this level of meaning—that is, the image of meaning (maʿnā3)—al-Jurjānı̄ explains, can lead people to misattribute eloquence to utterances For if onethinks that there is‘nothing other than maʿnā and lafẓ’, one reasons that if two state-ments intend the same maʿnā, then the difference in degree of eloquence mustdepend on their distinct uses of lafẓ.39

Meaning in this case would have no role,

‘since one would assume that this would [otherwise] lead to a contradiction: havingdifferent yet similar meanings at the same time’.40

How could they be expressing thesame idea, yet be different in the meaning they convey at the same time? However,

he goes on to explain, this is a superficial understanding The distinctiveness of a ment is determined neither by its form nor by its content alone Rather, it depends on athird element, which is the final shape or image in which a certain idea is presented; that

state-is, ṣūrat al-maʿnā (the image of meaning) When one evaluates a poetic statement,therefore, one has to consider the final image in which a meaning is articulated andnot the original unarticulated meaning itself

Al-Jurjānı̄ therefore complicates the relationship between lafẓ and maʿnā both at thesemiotic level and the semantic one He argues for a two-sided understanding of lafẓ

at the level of the word that takes into account both the signifier and the signified, asshown inFigure 1 At the level of the sentence, he proposes the idea of the ‘image ofmeaning’, which is also a two-sided understanding of the term maʿnā, which combinesboth form (lafẓ3) and content (maʿnā2), as shown inFigure 2

The final‘image of meaning’ is the ultimate matter through which eloquence comesinto view As we have seen, if the original meaning is the same, it is the way it is affirmedand conveyed that distinguishes a statement This articulation is inextricably dependent

on naẓm or the way the sentence is constructed Does this mean that eloquence is mined only by naẓm?

deter-Indirect Signification (maʿnā al-maʿnā)

Al-Jurjānı̄ states that ‘eloquent speech (al-kalām al-faṣı̄ḥ) is divided into two parts: one inwhich distinction and beauty is credited to lafẓ and one in which it is credited to naẓm’.41

He immediately clarifies that what he means by lafẓ in this case is

kināya (allusion, implied meaning), istiʿāra (metaphor), and tamthı̄l (analogy)that comes in the form of istiʿāra42

[… ]; in general, anything that contains urative speech (majāz), broadening (ittisāʿ), and a deviation of an utterancefrom its apparent [meaning].43

Consequently, words as signs can contribute to eloquence as well when they signifysomething other than their immediate, direct, or primary meaning—something al-Jurjānı̄ calls the ‘meaning of meaning’ (maʿnā al-maʿnā).44

Nevertheless, everything in speech that is moving and pleasing, such as ‘a nicemeaning, wise saying, elegance, metaphor, paronomasia’, al-Jurjānı̄ explains, is ulti-mately dependent on the success of naẓm.45

Words, including those with indirect ications such as metaphors and implied meaning, have no significance in and ofthemselves outside of their placement in a sentence He explains:

signif-Istiʿāra (metaphor), kināya (implied meaning), tamthı̄l (analogy), and theremaining kinds of majāz (figurative expressions) all require naẓm (to be com-bined with other words in a sentence) It is because of it and through it that theyfunction, for you cannot imagine any of these [indirect signs] entering speech assingle entities without considering their syntactical [context].46

Naẓm, therefore, is ultimately the main way in which an idea can be articulated sinceeverything is subject to it As a result, it is the main factor determining the quality ofthe resulting‘image’ (ṣūrat al-maʿnā) Hence, it is also the main factor to which the inim-itability of the Qurʾān is attributed, according to al-Jurjānı̄ However, at the level of theindividual words existing in a particular syntactical context, indirect significationthrough kināya, istiʿāra, majāz, and ‘tamthı̄l in the form of istiʿāra’ can also contribute

to the quality of the final‘image of meaning’.47

Let us now understand more specificallywhat he means by the ‘meaning of meaning’, which I am interpreting as ‘indirectsignification’

Al-Jurjānı̄ states that

speech is of two types: one that makes you understand the intended meaningthrough the signification of the utterance itself, such as if you want to reportfor Zayd, for example, [the act of] going out and you said‘Zayd went out’.[… ] The other type does not convey the intended meaning through the signif-ication of the word on its own The utterance, instead, signifies the meaningthat the convention of language dictates, and then you discover a secondary sig-nification for that meaning that allows you to arrive at the intended meaning.48

It is this second type of speech, which al-Jurjānı̄ calls ‘meaning of meaning’, that caninfluence the beauty and eloquence of the final ‘image of meaning’ This kind ofspeech that signifies its meaning indirectly revolves principally around two figures,kināya and majāz (including metaphor), both of which signify their secondarymeaning through some relationship between it and its direct meaning.49The first type

of speech, on the other hand, simply signifies what linguistic convention has alreadyestablished as its meaning

Al-Jurjānı̄ would agree with Saussure’s statement that ‘the linguistic sign is arbitrary’;that is, that‘the bond between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary’.50

Saussure trates this, arguing that

illus-the idea of‘sister’ is not linked by any inner relationship to the succession ofsounds s-ö-r which serves as its signifier in French; that it could be represented

equally by just any other sequence is proved by differences among languagesand by the very existence of different language.51

Al-Jurjānı̄ follows a similar line of reasoning when he explains that the word ‘rajul’ inArabic in reference to a man is not a more eloquent signifier than the word‘ādamı̄’ inPersian, for example.52The sign itself, therefore, is determined by the conventions of

a language without there being any intrinsic relationship between the signifier and thesignified The sign in and of itself, therefore, does not inherently carry any aestheticvalue That is because its relationship with what it signifies is arbitrarily imposed bythe conventions of language However, this is true only of‘unmotivated’ signs.53Signs motivated by some meaningful connection are described in modern semiotics as

‘semantically motivated’.54

This includes figurative speech such as metaphor, symbols,and synecdoche Al-Jurjānı̄’s concept of the ‘meaning of meaning’ also involves a ‘motiv-ated’ kind of signification; one that goes beyond the direct meaning arbitrarily assigned

by convention Majāz, al-Jurjānı̄ explains, is ‘any word that is intended to signify in its[particular] context something other than what it [conventionally] signifies for therebeing some relationship between the first [signification] and the second’.55

This ship can be one of similarity, in which case it is a metaphor (istiʿāra), such as saying ‘I saw

relation-a lion’ to signify a brave person by likening him to a lion Other kinds of associations mayalso link two meanings, such as, for example, using the word‘hand’ to indicate generosity

in the statement‘his hands abound with me’ (ﻱّﻟﺪ ﻳﻪ ﺃﻳﺕﺮﻛﺜ) The link in this case resultsfrom the fact that the hand is what does the‘giving’ and not from some similarity betweenhand and generosity.56 When you say‘I saw a lion’, al-Jurjānı̄ clarifies, ‘you want toaffirm the quality of lionhood on the man, while you do not intend to affirm, bysaying“he bestowed a hand on me ( ﻳﺪﻱﻨﺪﻋ ﻟﻪ)”,57

some quality of“handhood” to osity’.58

gener-Majāz is therefore a larger category than istiʿāra: ‘every istiʿāra is a majāz, but notevery majāz is an istiʿāra’.59

Kināya also entails the use of a word or group of words for the intention of signifying ameaning other than the words’ conventional literal signification In the case of kināya,this indirect meaning is reached through something the direct meaning implies and forwhich it provides evidence Examples include saying

‘he is one whose sword’s sheath has a long shoulder strap (ﺎﺩﺠ ﺍﻟﻨﻞﻳﻮﻃ ﻫ)’ to meanthat he is tall; expressing someone’s generosity by describing him as ‘havingabundant ashes under his cauldron (ﺭﻘِﺪﺍﻟ ﻣﺎﺭﺮﻴﻛﺜ)’, which implies that he pro-vides plentiful food to his guests; and saying ‘late sleeper (ﻰﺤﻀُّﺍﻟ ﻡ ﺆﻧ)’ of awoman to convey the idea that she is well-off, living in ease and comfort and

is being served, not needing to get up early to do chores All these examplesintend a meaning which they do not express directly but arrive at by mentioninganother meaning that follows it in existence and is a consequence of it.60

What excludes kināya from being part of ‘majāz’ (i.e figurative language) is that, whilethe intended meaning is something the direct meaning implies, the direct or literalmeaning is also valid: someone who is tall would indeed have a long shoulder strap forhis sword’s sheath; if a great amount of food is prepared, the ashes under one’s cauldronwould indeed abound; and if a woman is living a comfortable life, it would indeed followthat she could afford to sleep-in in the mornings.61While the ultimate point is to conveythe indirect meanings of tallness, generosity, and affluence, the matters that point to

these characteristics are also true on the literal level even if they are not the primary tion of the poet In contrast, when one calls someone a lion to indicate his braveness,there is no level where the literal meaning of lion can be true Consequently, istiʿāra is

inten-‘figurative’ and part of majāz, and kināya is not.62

The distinction between kināya and majāz is ultimately not as important for theirstatus as ‘modes of signification’ as what they have in common Both kināya andmajāz constitute signs that contribute to eloquence at the level of the word (or groups

of words) by intending a meaning other than their literal or direct one Curiously, aplain simile or comparison (tashbı̄h) does not take part in this process of signification

What about Simile?

Where to draw the line between tashbı̄h and istiʿāra is not clear-cut in classical Arabicliterary criticism Given that metaphor depends on the existence of a similaritybetween the literal meaning of the word and the intended referent, when does asimile cease to be a simile and become a metaphor? Is the particle of comparisonthe only element that differentiates the two figures? Should a comparison that doesnot employ a particle of comparison, such as saying ‘Zayd is a lion’, be considered

an istiʿāra or a tashbı̄h?

In Asrār al-balāgha, al-Jurjānı̄ tries to settle the uncertainty by arguing that wheneverthe mushabbah (primum comparationis) and mushabbah bihi (secundum comparationis)are both mentioned, then it is to be considered a tashbı̄h, even if the particle of compari-son is not explicitly stated In an istiʿāra, on the other hand, the mushabbah is droppedcompletely and the mushabbah bihi stands in its stead

The point of the statement, in the case of simile, is the very act of relating the existence

In other words, even if a particle of comparison is not employed when both parts of asimile are stated in a sentence, the point of the statement remains to relate a matter ofsimilarity and not equality, since it is obvious or impossible to claim that one is theother.65Consequently, the declaration of the similarity is itself the idea that is being con-veyed in a comparison

The similarity in the case of metaphor, on the other hand, ceases to be the point of thestatement and is instead taken for granted in order to convey some other matter: ‘youconstruct your speech in order to affirm another matter, other than [the similarity]’.66

So‘if you were to say “a lion is approaching,” the statement is constructed in order toaffirm the [act of] approaching for the lion and not to affirm the meaning of“lion”’.67

He goes on to say that: